NEW DELHI: Eminent filmmakers Madhur Bhandarkar, Radhakrishna Jagarlamudi, Prasoon Pandey, Ramesh Sippy and Shoojit Sircar will produce films on Swachh Bharat providing support and creative ideas to the movement.

This was announced here on Sunday by the Information and Broadcasting minister M Venkaiah Naidu after presenting the awards at the first Swachh Bharat Short Film Festival here. Minister of State for I and B Rajyavardhan Rathore and secretary Ajay Mittal were present.

Naidu said the festival was aimed at generating awareness, and motivating participants and citizens towards the Swachh Bharat mission through the most interactive medium of cinema.

Complimenting the youngsters for the creativity and talent shown, Naidu said the future of India was safe in the hands of the young generation who understood the communication needs on issues such as Swachh Bharat which required mass mobilization.

Naidu along with Rathore released the book “In the Footsteps of Mahatma: Gandhi & Sanitation” published by Publications Division (I & B ministry) and written by the noted Gandhian Sudarshan Iyengar.

Mittal said the festival had provided a platform to pool ideas and talent of the creative youngsters.

The competitive short films festival was for films having duration of not more than three minutes each. A jury comprising eminent theatre and film actor–producer Vani Tripathi, award-winning filmmaker Gitanjali Rao, and celebrated advertising personality Prahlad Kakar selected 20 short films out of the 4346 entries.

The first prize was pocketed by Katyanan Shivpuri from Maharashtra for the film Murga. The second prize was bagged by Sudhanshu Sharma, KVK Kumar and Akshay Danavale for their films Nahna Doot, Chembuku Moodindi (The Dying Vessel) and Sarkarmi Rati Wadho! respectively. The third prize was awarded to six entries.

The directors of the top 10 films were rewarded with Rs 10 lakh (first film), Rs 500,000 (next three films) and Rs 200,000 respectively (last six films), while the next 10 were awarded certificates.

The highlight was a performance by the Advait band and the rendition of Swachh Bharat theme song by the eminent singer Kailash Kher.